The Cause of Procrastination and How to Smash Through it

Procrastination is something most people have to deal with in their daily lives.  There are things they know they need to do, but they do not get done, day after, sometimes year after year. 

But what causes procrastination and how can we defeat it?  There are two main reasons we procrastinate and both of them have relatively simple solutions that do not require much willpower to implement.  Rather they require preparation.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

-Abraham Lincoln

The first reason people procrastinate is the most obvious:  they do not want to do the thing.  Very simple.  The solution can be either to get someone else to do it for you and to concentrate on doing things you like to do and are passionate about, or to outline the steps involved in the process of completing the thing and then starting at the first step and doing them in order until they are done.  Surprisingly often, simply laying out the steps, and following them in order can be the best way to complete a task even if you do not necessarily want to.  It does not require much willpower, but a simple ability to follow through on small steps in order.

The second and more common reason people procrastinate is that they do not know how to do something.  They have good intentions and want to do it, but they simply do not know how.  This is where we sharpen the axe with preparation.  Rather than rush right in and attempt to complete the task, the solution is to establish what it takes to complete it, then to lay out all of the steps in the order that it needs to be completed.  Spending a large amount of effort in preparation and determining the correct procedure, will save huge amounts of time that could have been wasted on doing the wrong activities or doing them in the wrong order.

                “We must never become too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw.”

-Dr. Stephen R. Covey

This process can be used to accomplish a variety of goals and tasks, regardless of how difficult they are.  Rather than being paralyzed by being too busy to determine how to do something, if we take the time to find out how to do them properly and then lay out the steps in order, tasks become much easier to accomplish and procrastination dramatically decreases.